1 Corinthians: Ethics at the Ends of the Ages

Sources: I. Howard Marshall et al., Exploring the New Testament: A Guide to the Letters and Revelation (IVP, 2002); Raymond E. Brown, The New Testament: an Introduction (Doubleday, 1997); Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 3d ed. (Oxford, 2004).(Cra

I. Crashing a Roman Banquet
Social theory from the nineteenth century concentrates on group dynamics;

anthropology focuses on cultural traits.

These dynamics and traits are abundantly on display in 1 and 2 Corinthians, whose historical context is well known.
Corinth manifests first-century dynamics, 'principalities and powers,' that are still operating today.
Today's 'gods and lords' (8:4) involve the self, the social group (the tribe), power itself (the state), desire (the market), ideas ('progress'), past arrangements, other lesser powers, and syncretistic combinations of any or all of these.

Similar dynamics in ancient Corinth involve

Greco-Roman family structures (7:1-16, 7:25-8:40),
gender and marital relations (5:1-13, 6:15-7:9, 11:1-16, 14:33-36, 16:13),
class structures in a town of commerce (1:26, 9:1-18, 11:17-34, 2 Cor 12:13),
civil/political relations in a rather amoral scene stacked towards the powerful (6:1-11),
spiritual hierarchies and factions in a plural and hierarchical context (12-14, 1:10-17, 3:1-4:21, 10:23-33),
rich, sometimes incompatible philosophical and cultural legacies (1:18-2:16, 6:12-20, 8:1-13, 15:12-19),
cultural and religious practices (e.g., feasting) of a society full of gods and idols (8-11, 14), and
jostling ethnic identities and interrelationships (7:17-24, 12:2; cf. Acts 18:4-17)
in a chaotic, problem-ridden community of believers
who have adopted a faith from a very different, Palestinian Jewish culture.

In all these ways Greco-Roman social history fills in many interpretive gaps in the background.

II. ... With Good News from the King
In the foreground is the impact on the good news of God's Kingdom (4:20, 6:9-10, 15:24, 15:50)

colliding with them in a social invasion and revolution.

1-2 Corinthians are snapshots of Paul's attempted renovation of a fire-damaged building.
Paul and his fellow ambassadors are proclaiming and teaching

the cross, right up front (1 Cor. 1:18-31)
the Kingdom of God, obscure for now but determinative (Acts 14:22, 18:11-13, 19:8, 28:31).

The Good News in Corinth shines through

Paul's and others' own lives, mission, and personality (2:1-5, 9:19-27 and 10:33, 16:1-24),
Israel's Scriptures, applied to their present moment (with Crispus' help? 9:8-12, 10:1-13, 11:2-16, 14:20-25, 15:20-57),
Christian liturgy (10:14-22, 11:17-34, 16:1-4, 16:22),
the tradition's historical bedrock (11:23-25, 15:1-8),
and theology, especially Christology (1:17-31, 15:1-58), eschatology (10:11, 13:1-13, 15:1-58), pneumatology (2:6-16, 12:1-31), ecclesiology (12-14).
(What about justification by grace through faith?!? See 1:30, 6:11.)

The Invading Kingdom: The good news is a story the Kingdom's invasions:

Creation: a “very good” but mere beginning for something other than God.
Rebellion: ‘the fall’ into “the world’s” cascading helpless depravity.
Anticipation and preparation: Israel’s frustrated being and purpose.
Inauguration: Jesus’ birth and baptism.
Invasion: Jesus’ ministry, whose acts are ‘signs.’
Invitation: proclaiming the good news of its approach for trusting response.
Migration: sinners’ justification and discipleship.
Ascension: Jesus’ passion, resurrection, and session.
Formation: sanctification (reforming, transforming) in church fellowship.
Mission: the Kingdom’s further invasions and migrations. 
Glorification: Jesus’ parousia or ‘appearing.’
Compensation: final judgment; inheritance or disinheritance.
Consummation: eternal life of lasting love, presence, service, and blessing in earthly-and-heavenly “new creation.”

The Kingdom's decisive engagements with God's estranged world touch all peoples, ways of life, and fields of learning with Christ's remaking.

This is a model for Christian interdisciplinary life and thought. The Kingdom's obscure framework contextualizes and reorders everything.
The apostles get this, while the Corinthians are building on their foundation inconsistently.

III. ... Hosting his Supper
This divine-judgment-on-human-judgment equips Paul, the Corinthians, and us to discern rightly

(see list in part I).

The Lord's Supper: Richard Hays: 'lenses' pervading the NT are community (church), cross, and (eschatological) new creation.

The Lord's Supper symbolizes all this neatly, but not comprehensively.

The Kingdom of Christ crucified frees and transforms in today's contexts.